Kerry 💋

(And also why you should never let that stop you either). In fact, I think if you can get the knack for being okay with this idea, it's one of the biggest hurdles you'll ever have to jump over in squashing your fear of failure – caring what people think.

Don't get me wrong, it's lovely, life-affirming and super-confidence-boosting for people that mean a lot to you, to be behind you. It can make a lot of things easier than not having them behind you. But what it doesn't do, is give you that valuable perspective and viewpoint on how much you want your dream, and realise what you're willing to do to reach it.

I'm lucky enough to have a fabulous mix of folk around me – folk who totally get what I want to do and are always behind me; folk who don't really get what I want to do but are cheerleaders supporting me anyway; and then folk who plainly and simply do not get it, don't get involved in it at all, and never will do. And y'know, I actually need each of their outlooks. Even the poo-poo-my-ideas ones.

If you've got a dream-business dream

So why do I think it's okay for those nearest to you to not dig what you want to do as a business? Why do I think you shouldn't get p*ssed at them if they don't share your social media posts promoting it? And why do I think you actually need their disengagement? There's a few reasons.

Firstly, your business needs to survive beyond the support of your friends and family hun. That's the cold, hard truth. It's totally awesome to have their support of course, but you defo need to be in a place where you're not reliant on it. Them not buying from you, is doing you a good service in helping you think bigger and smarter, earlier.

Secondly, they're likely not your target audience anyway. (And if they are your target audience, remember they're not your entire audience. Or certainly shouldn't be!). Have your target market nailed, don't deviate from it and don't worry if your Dad isn't in it. He's awesome, but you're going to be okay without him as a client. Remind yourself of when the boot's on the other foot too; if a friend of your's has a business selling miniature, hand-carved wooden matchboxes, if they're not your bag, there's only so many you can buy, and only so many times you can share their social media posts before you have to draw a line and carry on with your life. The same brutal truth applies to you and your business – you've gotta look further afield to find your true audience.

Thirdly, their lack of support is genuinely doing you a favour – hear me out on this one.

It's a big ol' world out there and that sense of feeling 'out on your own', is actually giving you an authentic taste of the real business world – where no success happens by accident, you have to fight for your place and find a way to believe in yourself every freaking day, despite sometimes feeling like the universe is against you. You're not going to know that feeling, if for the first year you're sustained wholly by everyone that lives on your Mom's street. In fact, you can use someone's lack of support as a signal that it's worth your while doing some first-hand market research and really test your idea and market for viability. Never a bad idea. And then you can thank them for giving you the idea! :)

If you've got a dream-lifestyle dream

So why do I think it's okay for your homies to not be into your dream-life-goals either? Well, mainly because they don't have to be. It's not their life and they're not going to be living it, right? But also, because I really do believe any dream that's worth something, needs to be challenged, so you can genuinely find out how much you want it and are willing to fight for it. Anything that you flake from going for, after verbalising it, say with a friend, wasn't reeeally a dream was it? It was a cool, fleeting thought. And anything that comes to you super-easily, isn't reeeally worth having, because everyone would have it. Nothing dreamy about that.

Dreams worth going for are those things that need grit, sacrifice and commitment to be reached. Dreams are those things that never leave your consciousness. Those things that you would most certainly regret not doing when you picture your 80 year-old self looking back at your life. Those are the dreams I'm talking about. Plus, nothing can give you more welly and incentive to go after something, than someone scoffing at the very idea you're aiming for. So yep, you should actually thank your visionless homies for their negative vibes. It's those exact vibes that might just give you that bit of motivation to take action towards reaching that dream.

I suppose when you look at the bigger picture of it all, the naysayers (that you'd hoped would be yaysayers), aren't you and rightfully don't have your dream. They've been brought up differently to you, they think differently to you, and they have different interests and priorities to you. What tickles your fancy doesn't automatically tickle theirs, and that's a good thing. If we all had the same dreams and aspirations we'd live pretty one-dimensional lives y'know? And even though it can feel like a let down if they have different ideas to you in terms of support, I'm sure they're likely to totally show up for you in a million other ways. And that's awesome.

So yep, it's 100% okay for them not to 'get it', because youdo.

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What is The Imperfect Life®?

It’s Your Flawsome, Happy Strategy – a toolkit of real-life products and mindset resources to help you create the life you want (and love the gorgeously, messy adventure of creating it). It’s here to help you turn down the noise of some ‘perfect perception’ you feel you have to live up to, and crank up the volume of your own most powerful instincts. This strategy believes that it’s okay to not be okay, but it’s also okay to change your story if and when you want to. It believes that you’re absolutely enough as you are, but also to never feel ashamed if you wanna be more. It believes that you already possess all you need to start, but it’s also here to help you draw a roadmap to guide you on your way. It believes that your flawsome path ahead certainly won’t be easy, but because of that – it also might just be the coolest thing to ever happen to you.